Read
the captions by hovering over the images, and click on them to
see them enlarged.

St
Andrew, Eaton, Norwich

Here
we are in the pleasant south-western suburbs of
the city of Norwich, and Eaton is within the city
boundaries. As such, this means that St Andrew is
the last surviving thatched church in the city.
Today, it is surrounded by development, but
twenty years ago it was backed by open
countryside. To see it from the north, or from
Morrisons car park next door, you might be struck
by how the long nave and chancel, all in one, are
so very much older than the elegant late
Perpendicular tower against which they stand.
Closer to, the windows reveal a late 12th century
building.

If you think that St Andrew is
little more than a subsumed medieval village
church, however, you are in for something of a
surprise. This unfolds as you make your way
around to the south side, for there, hidden from
the road, is one of the most dramatic extensions
on any Norfolk medieval church. Three pointed
prows point away from each other, and finish in
dropped, angled glass curtains. The relationship
between church and extension is fine, although
the join itself is not a wholly comfortable one,
as we will see inside.

Despite
being an urban church, St Andrew is welcoming to
strangers and pilgrims, and is open every day, for which
the parish is to be thoroughly congratulated. Facing
ahead of you as you step in is the church's one great
medieval survival, a late 14th century depiction of the warning
against idle gossip. This subject is found several
times in East Anglia, and conventionally depicts, as
here, two women neglecting their rosaries, which dangle
down from their hands as they kneel. Instead, they are
having a chat, and what they are saying is being written
down on scrolls by two enormous devils, presumably to be
later used in evidence against them. This is the only
surviving part of a wider scheme, originally uncovered
and recorded in the 19th century, which was exposed again
when the extension was built.

The
extension is a good one, full of light. You step into it
through the former south doorway, and so it effectively
creates a second, separate church, a contrast with the
contemporary extension at the medieval parish church of Kesgrave in the suburbs of
Ipswich, where the entire south wall was removed and a
similarly dramatic, boat-like extension added. The lights
of the lower part of the south window are successively
blocked, creating a dramatic backdrop to the simple
altar. If this was a Catholic church, there would
probably have been an attempt to make the altar more
central, but here, the clean, fresh lines are thoroughly
traditional. As if to set the Anglican seal, the royal
arms formerly in the old church have been reset on the
gallery above the south door.

Coming
back from the light of the new church, the old nave and
chancel seem excessively dark, and not only because of
the pretty dreadful 1950s roodscreen. Some of the windows
on the south side are obscured by the extension. This
can't be helped, but on this early morning in late winter
it certainly made the interior feel pretty gloomy.

The
19th century restoration was by Thomas Jekyll,
and that century has left some decent glass and a
most curious memorial. In the gloom, I found it
rather had to decipher, but the illumination of
my flash revealed a cross, an anchor and a heart,
entwined by a tree growing from a rock. This is a
conventional representation of Faith, Hope and
Charity. In the wall plate of Jekyll's
scissor-braced roof above, a later hand has
lettered in the words of psalm 148: He hath made them fast for ever
and ever : he hath given them a law which
shall not be broken. Praise the Lord upon
earth : ye dragons, and all deeps; Fire and
hail, snow and vapours : wind and storm,
fulfilling his word; Mountains and all
hills : fruitful trees and all cedars;
Beasts and all cattle: worms and feathered fowls;
Kings of the earth and all people : princes
and all judges of the world.